<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>To Catch a King by NovemberMurray</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28793460">To Catch a King</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovemberMurray/pseuds/NovemberMurray'>NovemberMurray</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Mand'alor the Reluctant, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Prompt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:41:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,173</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28793460</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovemberMurray/pseuds/NovemberMurray</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cara Dune is pretty sure she recognizes the drunk sleeping in the corner of the Navarro common house, but he’s supposed to be several systems away being a model leader for his divided and divisive people.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Din Djarin &amp; Cara Dune</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>76</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>522</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>To Catch a King</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>@echodrops on tumblr came up with the idea. Wrote this very quickly after I saw the prompt. </p><p>I don't usually write in present tense so that was hard.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s late, <em>very late</em>, so late it’s early if you’re anyone on Navarro except the lowly, under-appreciated, severely underpaid Republic Marshall moonlighting as a Bounty Guild Enforcer Carasynthia Dune. She’s about ready to drop, and Goddesses save any fool stupid enough to get between her and her bed at this point. At least it’s late enough that she doesn’t have to drag Karga out of bed to give him the update; Nope, Karga is already sitting at his usual table in the common house with his breakfast and morning glass of tormato-juice and spotchka.</p><p>“Alright!” Cara declares, dropping into the booth across from him. “The last ship of bounties is off. They were <em>four hours</em> late! Then they didn’t bring their own crew, complained about understaffing, and it took us the rest of the night to load up the carbonite stiffs. How is this acceptable?”</p><p>“As always, my dear, you are an exceptional assistance. I don’t know where I would be without you.”</p><p>“Dead in a gutter probably, after you lost this job, drank yourself into bankruptcy, and got kicked out by your latest girlfriend--what’s her name again? Liza--Lisa?”</p><p>“Oh, things ended with Lesi a <em>long</em> time ago?”</p><p>“Uh huh. Like last week.” Cara rolls her eyes and gets ready to stand up to leave when she notices a figure sitting at a back table of the common house. There aren’t many people up and out yet. The few scattered around the room she can recognize as Guild regulars or a locals, but this one…</p><p>“Who’s that?” she asks Karga, craning her neck to see the back of the man’s head of messy dark hair. He’s slumped in his seat, chin to his chest in a ratty poncho bunched around his bulky shoulders.</p><p>“Don’t know,” Karga says with a shrug. “He came in last night and started throwing back spotchka. There were two dead low-lifes on the floor beside him when I arrived this morning. Bartender droid said they tried to rob him in the night. Hah! I’m planning to recruit him when he wakes up.”</p><p>“Uh, huh,” Cara hums, only half listening. She’s leaning halfway out of the booth now, staring openly. There’s just something annoyingly familiar about his man, his posture and his body language, the way he’s sleeping sitting up…</p><p>Cara gets up and crosses the room cautiously.</p><p>Getting a good look at his profile, the hooked nose and high cheek bones, that inkling of recognition only gets stronger. But its like trying to place a face from a dream.</p><p>She sees his eyes flicker open, immediately alert as she draws near, but nothing else, not a muscle, even twitches. His dark eyes slant over to watch her feet as she moves around to the other side of the table and tracks her as she sits down heavily. If he’d been wearing a helmet his head wouldn’t have even moved, and he would have looked to the whole world as if he were still asleep. But he isn’t wearing a helmet.</p><p>Cara smirks at the man across the table from her and meets his dark eyes unabashedly.</p><p>For a moment they just stare at each other and every second that passes just makes Cara more and more sure of her hunch. She cocks her head to the side as the grin breaks across her face. His expression crumples into a scrunched look of displeasure.</p><p>“What are you doing here Djarin?”</p><p>“<em>Dank Farrik</em>,” he groans and rubs a hand over his face. He gives a heavy sigh and tips his head back, hand under his chin, watching Cara. “You were supposed to be back in the Core still.”</p><p>“Yeah. You know how it is: escorting dignitaries, securing public protests--Not what I signed up for. Got bored, wound up back here.” Cara shrugs and leans over when Din tries to avoid her gaze. “That doesn’t answer my question why <em>the Mand’alor</em>...”</p><p>“Shhhh!” Din hushed her, looking around with panic.</p><p>“...is sleeping like a common drunk in a Navarro cantina.”</p><p>“I…” Din ran his tongue over his lip then bit it as he worked on a response, hand hovering over the table. “I quit,” he says finally.</p><p>“Oh!” Cara leans back with a smirk. “You mean another Mandalorian, from some new never-before-heard-of clan, because all the known ones have sworn loyalty to you, appeared out of the blue after all these years to challenge you for the Darksaber, and won?”</p><p>“N-No.” Din said with a guilty look.</p><p>“You ran away.”</p><p>“I didn’t…. I didn’t run. I, um,...”</p><p>“You tried to fake your death again?”</p><p>Din presses his lips together and his eyes dart up to her face and then away so fast it’s comical. Cara laughs out loud. The poor man had probably the worst poker face she had ever seen. Years living under the Death Watch dogma of never showing his face had stripped him of any ability to control his facial expressions. It was probably why he still wore the helmet 99% of the time. The poor fool.</p><p>“I’m calling Fett.”</p><p>“No!” Din grabs for her arm.</p><p>“Din. There’s a planet that needs you.”</p><p>“Mandalore is fine.” He waves his free hand dismissively. “Trade is up, recruitment is up, Republic tariffs are down, cost of living is going down: it’s great! It really, really doesn’t need me anymore.”</p><p>“Oh yes it does,” Cara insists, peeling his hand off her vambrace. “Have you been to one of your parliament sessions? I’ve been in <em>battles</em> with less bloodshed!”</p><p>“That was a bad day.”</p><p>“Your own aides said it was--and I quote--<em>‘surprisingly civil’</em>. The only thing that planet of metal-headed yahoos seems to agree on is that<em> you</em> are the Mand’alor…”</p><p>“SHHHH!”</p><p>“...and what you say goes.”</p><p>“I don’t even say that much!”</p><p>“Which is why they love you. Now I’m calling Fett to take you back. He’ll be happy. You know these little excursions of yours have made him independently wealthy--I mean independently of the criminal empire he<em> absolutely doesn’t run</em>.” She rolls her eyes as she scrolls through contacts on her communicator.</p><p>“No idea what you’re talking about, Stripes,” a gruff voice says behind her, accompanied by heavy boot falls announcing the arrival of a large man in green amor and an intimidating helmet with a T-shaped visor. Din spins around and groans aloud, dropping his head into the crook of his elbow on the back of the chair.</p><p>“And no need to call. I got wind of our little Mand’alor’s plans a while ago. I was going to let him sleep off the hangover first.”</p><p>“Nice to see you too, Fett.” Cara greets him, like she isn’t a Republic Marshall and he isn’t one of the Republic’s Most Wanted Mobsters.</p><p>“Come on, <em>Alor’ika</em> (little boss),” Boba pulls a hypospray of sedative out of his belt and levels Din with a long-suffering glare that no helmet could mask. “You know the drill. I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold.”</p><p>--</p><p>Fin.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>